Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Ruthenium slid to an eight-year low
on reduced demand for the material used to coat hard disks as
consumers favor computer tablets including Apple Inc.’s iPad and
smartphones and as manufacturers used metal from inventories.

The metal, also used in the electrochemical industry, slid
33 percent this year and is set for a third successive annual
decline. Purchases slipped due to growing demand for tablets and
smartphones that use flash technology, rather than traditional
hard-disk drives that rely on spinning platters, according to
Mitsubishi Corp. International (Europe) Plc.

“The big area of demand that’s really supported the price
and purchasing over the last few years hasn’t been there in the
way that it once was,” Jonathan Butler, a precious metals
strategist at Mitsubishi in London, said today by phone.
“There’s been some stock building over the last couple of years
which means manufacturers haven’t necessarily needed to go to
the market quite so much.”

Ruthenium dropped 10 percent, the most since February 2009,
to $60 an ounce by 1:40 p.m. London time, according to Johnson
Matthey data on Bloomberg. That’s the lowest price since March
2005 and 93 percent below the $870 peak reached in February
2007. Last year’s demand in ounces was less than 10 percent that
of platinum, Johnson Matthey estimates.

‘Quite Attractive’

“Looking at these prices, from an industrial user
perspective, they’re quite attractive,” Butler said. “There’s
still very much a role for hard-disk drive storage, particularly
for server farms where you generally need large amounts of data
storage.”

Rhodium, mainly used in car autocatalysts and also in
chemical and glass industries, fell 6.5 percent this year to
$1,010 an ounce, reaching a nine-year low in July. Iridium, used
in spark plugs and for growing metal oxide crystals, slumped 29
percent this year to $750 an ounce and reached the lowest since
2010 this month.

Platinum fell 4 percent this year to $1,477.85 an ounce and
palladium lost 0.5 percent to $700.90 an ounce. Both metals are
mainly used in vehicle pollution-control devices and jewelry.